Southeast Archeological Center

SEAC: Gabe
Nargot's Cabin-Investigations at a Nineteenth Century Slave Domicile in Northwest Louisiana

Christina
E. Miller and Bennie
C. Keel

In 1725 Jean
Pierre Philippe Prudhomme emigrated from France to Louisiana where he married
Catherine Mesllier Picard. They settled in northwest Louisiana, in Natchitoches,
on land granted to them by the King of France. In 1789, his grandson Jean
Pierre Emmanuel secured a land grant from Governor Estavan Miro thirteen
miles south of Natchitoches. According to an 1816 surveyor's
plat Emmanuel owned 716.74 acres and by 1827 had increased his holdings
to 796.14 acres. Initially his primary crops consisted of indigo and tobacco,
which gained a reputation for good quality snuff. Cotton cultivation coincided
with the United States’ acquisition of Louisiana in 1803. In fact, Emmanuel
was supposedly the first man to have grown cotton in the state.

The cultivation
of indigo, tobacco and cotton required a large labor force. According to
the 1810 census, Emmanuel owned 53 slaves. By 1820 he owned 74 slaves;
by 1830 the number had increased to 96 and in 1840 to 104. In 1860 there
were 145 slaves living at Oakland in 30 houses. Only 3 of these cabins
are still standing. One, the cook's
cabin, was moved north of the big house and converted into a fishing
cabin. The other two cabins are located
south of the big house, near the overseer’s house, cotton gin and seed
house. The cabins were constructed of bousillage and wood lathe on raised
brick piers. Those near the cotton gin have been covered with wood siding.
A fourth exists as a ruin. Family tradition, site maps and local oral history
claimed the cabin had been of poteaux-en-terre (post in the ground) and
bousillage construction. Furthermore, the cabin was the residence of Mr.
Gabe Nargot, the last surviving slave of the plantation.

In 1997 the
National Park Service purchased the 42-acre plantation complex as an inclusion
to the Cane River Creole National Park. Investigations, which included
auger
testing and formal unit excavation,
were conducted to determine the nature of the archeological record and
as a precursor to structure stabilization. Auger tests were conducted at
intervals corresponding to historic use; low use areas were tested at 50-foot
intervals, while high use areas were tested at 25-foot intervals. In all,
1,660 auger holes were excavated. In conjunction with the auger tests,
forty-six formal excavation units, covering a total surface area of 1,187
ft2, were placed at various locations around the plantation.
In the course of these investigations, units were excavated at the cabin
ruin to evaluate the integrity of the archeological deposits. In late spring
1998 we returned to determine whether or not the structure was a post-in-the
ground cabin.

When the
French colonists arrived in Natchitoches, Louisiana in 1714, the only available
construction material was wood. Timber frame buildings were common in Europe,
but these half-timbered constructions were filled with stone, known as
colombage. The French borrowed the idea of using clay kneaded with moss,
called bousillage, as a substitute for stone from the Native Americans.

Post in the
ground construction went through phases of popularity and decline in the
Natchitoches area. According to a study of conveyance records by Carolyn
Wells (Gregory and Stokes 1981: 30), construction of post in the ground
structures steadily decline until 1769, at which time its popularity began
to increase. It reached a plateau in 1785.

In the poteaux
en terre construction, two methods were used to place the posts in
the ground. Timbers were either placed upright in individually dug holes
two to three feet apart and two to three feet deep or in a trench. Using
the trench method, the timbers were rolled into place, pulled upright and
the spaces between the posts were filled with earth, stones, bones or other
debris.Barreaux or wooden bars were placed between the upright
posts, forming a lattice for the bousillage. Preparing and applying bousillage
to a structure was often a social affair. The women cooked a large meal,
while neighbors and friends prepared the bousillage. Alternate layers of
earth and green moss were placed in a hole called a tache, and soaked with
water. Men, called tacherons, crushed and mixed the moss and earth with
their bare feet until it was the consistency of mortar. The ingredients
of bousillage varied. Different combinations of mud, moss, deer hair and
lime was also used. The mixture was then applied to the lattice of barreaux
between the upright posts. Boards were placed diagonally between the upright
posts as support. The walls were plastered and whitewashed or covered with
weatherboard. Chimneys were built in a similar fashion but were often replaced
with brick as they fell into disrepair.

According
to investigations by Dr. Hiram Gregory at the Badin-Roque House, the only
standing post in the ground structure in Louisiana, located some ten miles
south of Oakland, the traditional technology of bousillage construction
had definitely reached the "re-order point" by the 1920s. Holes in the
wall of the Badin-Roque house had been filled with can lids and glass bottle
fragments, and covered with shingles, newspaper and wallpaper.

Using Dr.
Gregory’s findings and additional descriptions, we could assume that if
Gabe’s Cabin had been a post in the ground construction we would uncover
some evidence of post molds or a trench containing
post molds. Given the number of posts required for construction and
the amount of debris packed into the trench required to hold the posts
upright, some evidence would surely remain. Since the cabin had not been
torn down but allowed to slowly deteriorate, we hoped to find some indication
of the bousillage construction.

The site
of Gabe Nargot’s cabin, entirely covered with brush, was cleared. Wooden
beams, lathe, brick and other construction materials lay strewn across
the site. Two large piles
of brick were located on the north and southwest sides. The site was
mapped and photographed prior to further clearing. Elevations
were recorded with an optical transit, which showed a rise in ground elevation
where the structure would have stood as compared to the surrounding ground
surface.

Brick and
boards were removed from the area and placed in separate piles adjacent
to the site, where the structural elements
were measured and documented. Removal of the north brick pile revealed
the remnants of a fireplace. Two 5 X 5 foot units were excavated around
the fireplace to enable full documentation.
The fireplace was constructed of handmade as well as commercially manufactured
brick, which indicated that repairs had been made to it sometime after
1918 when the standard brick size of 8 x 3 ¾ x 2 ¼ inches
was adopted by the National Brick Manufacturers Association (Gurke: 1987).
Meanwhile, an intact brick pier was uncovered
in the southeast corner. The
position of the fireplace and the brick pier indicated that additional
piers for the east side of the house would likely be situated in a northeasterly
direction. Probing and subsequent excavation uncovered two piers. From
these known locations, we were able to extrapolate the approximate locations
of the west line of piers, which were also excavated.

We uncovered
six
piers. This evidence demonstrates that the cabin was raised on brick
piers rather than a post in the ground structure. The contour
map, which demonstrates a slight rise in elevation due to occupational
deposition, corresponds with the position of the fireplace and piers. Surface
stains and further excavation proved that bousillage had been used in its
construction. Length-wise or north to south, the cabin measured 23.5 feet;
east to west—14 feet wide. We compared these measurements to those of the
two-slave/tenant cabins nearest the ruin. They didn’t match. The third
standing cabin (the cook's cabin)
had been moved north of the big house and used as a fishing cabin. The
measurements from that cabin matched exactly with those of the cabin ruin.Some
changes had been made throughout the years to the cabin such as replacing
the cypress shingles with a tin roof and removal of the chimney but we
had an idea of what the cabin would have looked like. Subsequent to our
investigations, the Prudhomme family provided us with pictures of the plantation’s
structures taken by Craig A. Estes, an architecture student at Louisiana
State University, in 1969. Gabe Nargot’s cabin was among the numerous photographs
(photograph
1,
2,
3,
4
and 5) he made at the plantation.
Estes commented that the cabin "will in all probability deteriorate completely
within a year or so.It is currently being used as a pigpen. It is of bousillage
construction with vertical posts and lateral corner bracing."

Dr. Fred
B. Kniffen, in his article Folk Housing: Key to Diffusion, stated
that housing "reflects cultural heritage, current fashion, functional needs,
and the positive and negative aspects of noncultural environment." To completely
understand this heritage and these needs requires an interdisciplinary
approach. In this instance, the archeological record disproved the oral
tradition but the two worked together to answer a question. There needs
to be open communication between all disciplines concerned with a site,
especially a historic site. In the case of Oakland, the interaction of
historians, architects and archeologists is a requirement for documenting
and understanding the complex of human culture that existed at the plantation.